Samsung says it’s working on a new Gear VR

With Google’s Daydream View headset and platform now out in the wild, some have questioned whether Samsung would even opt to release another Gear VR headset.

According to Samsung electronics vice-president Sung-Hoon Hong, however, the South Korean tech giant is actually working on two new virtual and augmented reality headsets: a successor to its Gear VR mobile-powered headset, and a mixed reality device similar to Microsoft’s HoloLens or the Magic Leap.

Wearable Zone, a wearable-focused publication, put together a long writeup of Hong’s recent talk at this week’s Virtual Reality Summit in California. During the presentation, Hong revealed that Samsung is working on a “light field engine” that has the ability to product “really, really realistic” holograms and that they look “really touchable.” He also emphasized that augmented reality has better business development possibilities than virtual reality and hinted that the experimental technology could be revealed at this year’s Mobile World Congress in February.

The Gear VR, released back in 2016, was co-created with Facebook owned Oculus. Samsung has also promised to release a phone that’s compatible Google’s Daydream, which could perhaps indicate the company plans to support both virtual reality platforms simultaneously.

Just a few a few months ago Samsung released an upgraded, slightly more comfortable Gear VR that features USB-C. Following the debacle that became the overheating Note 7, however, the tech giant has remained relatively quiet about this headset.

The very first Samsung Gear VR came out in December of 2014 for the Note 4. The Next updated version came out in May 2015 for the Galaxy S6. The current version came out in November 2015. Naturally with the support of Oculus.